


guardian

by verba



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Gen, Other, hyewon main focus, lipsoul easter egg/hinted at, olivia/jungeun working relationship (not romantic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-27 05:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18190088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verba/pseuds/verba
Summary: ‘Name?’‘Son Hyejoo.’The woman behind the desk lay her finger onto a red button in front of her and leaned towards the microphone on her desk to relay this information to Jungeun. ‘Doctor? A volunteer is here.’‘Great,’ replied Jungeun’s voice through the speaker, ‘send them up.’





	guardian

‘And finally.. Son Hyejoo,’ said the chancellor of the university, reading the last name on the list of engineering graduates.

The hall fell silent for the first time during the graduation, minus the sporadic murmurs. Hyejoo approached the stage timidly as many of the students she passed by either stared at or away from her. She ascended to the stage gratefully receiving the scroll from the elderly man and bowed quickly before scurrying back to her seat.

As soon as the ceremony came to a close Hyejoo rushed off back home to the sanctuary of her bed, who would always welcome her with open arms when no one else wanted to. As she entered through the doorway she was met with an unfamiliar scenario - she was pulled into a warm embrace from both of her parents. 

‘We’re so proud of you,’ her mother whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek.

Hyejoo’s parents never really got involved in her life. She acknowledged that she always wanted to seclude herself to concentrate on her studies and research of upcoming technology, but she always thought there were more reasons - reasons that she was unaware of, and might never know.

Nonetheless, she decided to stop worrying for once and stood, smiling, soaking in the rare, but heart-warming, feeling of love and support from her parents knowing that she could finally spend more time with them as a graduate. 

-

Twice. That’s how many times Hyejoo’s phone vibrated. But why? She hadn’t received a text message since before her graduation - three months ago. Regardless, she withdrew the device from her coat pocket and was momentarily taken aback when an almost breathless hologram of the famed engineer, and Hyejoo’s idol, Kim Jungeun appeared in front of her. 

‘I need your help,’ Jungeun began, her breaths shallow and rapid, ‘whoever can hear me, come to my laboratory as quick as you can.’

Before Hyejoo could even comprehend the situation, Jungeun’s illusory figure vanished as fast as it had appeared and, without a second thought, Hyejoo broke her walking pace to rush to the nearest train station to begin her journey to the capital.

-

Hyejoo sat alone on the train, her earphones plugging her ears to dissuade other passengers from talking to her. She wasn’t actually listening to music though, she just preferred the silence while she focused on daydreaming about what it was Kim Jungeun could possibly need help with, and whether Hyejoo herself was the only volunteer.

The train sped along the track approaching the city as a variety of colours from the windows of high-rise apartment blocks and the neon signs of skyscrapers danced together in the night sky under the watch of the moon. Hyejoo sat frozen still in her seat, mouth agape as she observed the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

Hyejoo was pulled out of her state of subconsciousness when the emotionless voice of a woman reverberated through the train carriages.

‘Last stop,’ announced the voice, causing Hyejoo to disconnect her earphones, gather what few belongings she had in a panic, and rush off the train.

-

As she ascended from the steps leading out from the train station, Hyejoo’s senses were immediately overwhelmed by the activity of the city. The sound of cars speeding by and locals talking on their phones shattered the silence that once filled her ears. The smell of freshly baked goods - donuts, hot dogs and pretzels satisfied her nostrils, while the colours that she’d become acquainted with on the train returned, this time in all their glory.

Midway through her absorption of the city’s beauty, Hyejoo stumbled following a collision with an older man, armed with half a dozen shopping bags. 

‘Damn tourists,’ he mumbled, rushing away before Hyejoo could return a quip. Nonetheless, she still shot the man her signature glare which had caused her to be one of the most feared students in university.

Having been brought back down to earth by this unwanted interaction, Hyejoo headed further into the city, towards where Jungeun’s laboratory was, to see whether any of the theories she’d come up with on the train were true.

Still enamoured of the sights and sounds of the city, Hyejoo roamed the streets, awed by how stunning the skyscrapers looked underneath the sun which had since risen. Distracted, she remained oblivious to pedestrian crossings and the droves of traffic trying to navigate the city. 

It was only after the sound of tires screeching, a deep voice yelling ‘watch it!’, and a hand forcefully dragging Hyejoo back to the side of the road, did she realise that she’d almost caused a catastrophic accident and almost gotten herself killed. She looked around frantically, trying to identify her saviour to no avail. Everyone was standing, frozen, staring at her. 

Uncomfortable with, and unused to, the amount of attention focused on her, Hyejoo rushed off to find the laboratory without looking back.

-

‘Hello!’ began the blonde receptionist, her brown eyes forming crescents, as Hyejoo cautiously approached the desk, still shaken from the experience she’d just had . ‘Welcome to Doctor Jungeun’s lab, how can I help?’ she enquired.

‘I’m here about the…’, Hyejoo paused, thinking of how best to word Jungeun’s cry for help, ‘job application.’ She knew it wasn’t an actual job and the receptionist seemed to know this as well as she stared at Hyejoo with her eyebrows arranged in a way that conveyed confusion.

After a brief pause, the receptionist understood what Hyejoo meant. ‘Name?’

‘Son Hyejoo.’

The woman behind the desk lay her finger onto a red button in front of her and leaned towards the microphone on her desk to relay this information to Jungeun. ‘Doctor? A volunteer is here.’

‘Great,’ replied Jungeun’s voice through the speaker, ‘send them up.’

-

‘Just through that door there,’ said the receptionist politely as the elevator doors opened, gesturing towards the white door that stood in front of her and Hyejoo. Hyejoo smiled at the woman and said a gentle thanks before stepping out of the elevator.

Even though Hyejoo knew Jungeun was probably expecting her, she still knocked on the door and waited patiently for an answer. After all, Hyejoo had admired Jungeun since high school and wouldn’t want to make a bad first impression. The door swung open almost immediately and Hyejoo was awestruck. In front of her stood her idol - not a hologram and not panicking.

Before Hyejoo could even think of what to say, the engineer grabbed her wrists and dragged her into the room excitedly.

‘Come in, come in!’ Jungeun exclaimed.

Hyejoo’s eyes scanned the room - there were no other volunteers, no other people. Just the scientist and a vast array of machines and devices of different sizes. One contraption that caught Hyejoo’s attention stood proudly in the corner. It looked as though it had an abundance of clocks stuck to it, prompting her to wonder what it could be used for. In the centre of the room was a strange machine. She nodded towards the odd device. 

‘I-is that what you needed help with?’ she enquired, trying (and failing) not to seem nervous.

‘Yes!’ yelled Jungeun, a smile on her face and a sense of pride in her voice. ‘This,’ she said, walking over to the machine to keep Hyejoo’s focus on it, ‘is the latest in mind-reading technology. It’s intended to allow people to relive past memories!’ 

Hyejoo winced at the thought, knowing that she had a lot of memories she’d rather forget than ever have to relive. Nevertheless, she didn’t want to risk disappointing her idol so she silently vowed to participate. 

‘So what do I have to do?’ asked Hyejoo.

‘Just sit here,’ answered Jungeun, patting the leather chair next to her, ‘and put this helmet on,’ she continued, now tapping the top of an unusually large piece of metallic headgear that was placed above the chair.

Hyejoo abided and her vision was now completely obscured courtesy of the helmet. She could hear Jungeun fiddling with what she assumed to be some sort of controls, but all Hyejoo knew now was that her safety, and potentially her life, was in the hands of Kim Jungeun.

An electric shock coursed through Hyejoo’s entire body and her brain felt like it was being stretched and squashed simultaneously. Traumatic memories ranging from Hyejoo’s childhood, to during her education, to just half an hour prior when she almost got hit by a car flickered in front of her eyes like a motion picture. She groaned instinctively, having to endure the mental pain of reliving these memories. Before Jungeun could react to the previous noise, Hyejoo gasped and leaned forward. 

‘What?’ asked Jungeun, trying to hide the panic that was slowly rising inside of her. ‘What is it?’

‘Remove the helmet. Please,’ Hyejoo pleaded, starting to shake.

-

‘And you’re sure you don’t know her?’ Jungeun asked Hyejoo, who was staring at the plain white wall straight ahead of her, having barely moved since being released from the machine’s grip. ‘Definitely not your mother? Or a sister? A friend?’

‘My mother has never been blonde,’ Hyejoo began in response, ‘and I didn’t have a sister. No one was near me in the city centre. Especially no one who looked like that. Everyone was just staring at me.’

Jungeun turned to her desk and began frantically making notes on a clipboard. She spoke as she wrote.

‘Silent… calm… only appearing during near death experiences… surely not?’

Hyejoo forfeited her staring contest with the wall to look at the doctor, who was now repeatedly reading the notes she’d just made and scratching her head with a puzzled look on her face. 

‘What is it?’ asked Hyejoo.

Jungeun stammered as she relayed her conclusion to the volunteer. 

‘Son Hyejoo.. I-I’ve never known anything like it, but you may have a guardian angel.’

-

‘Is there anyway we can make her appear?’ Hyejoo asked Jungeun, who was now pacing back and forth, trying to comprehend both the discovery that she’d just made and the fact that it had taken her, the most reputable scientist in the entire country, this long to make. ‘You know.. without me having to risk my life?’

‘There is one method we could try,’ Jungeun began, turning her head to look at the machine in the corner which had piqued Hyejoo’s curiosity when she first entered the room, ‘but it’s less about making her appear to you.. and more about making you appear to her.’ 

Jungeun walked over to the machine at the edge of the room and put her hand on the side of it just as she had with the device at the heart of the room. ‘This, as you may or may not know, is a time machine. If you’re as eager about this as I think you are then we’ll need to use this to go back, physically, to the memories you saw, to see if she’s there - and if she can see you.’

Hyejoo grimaced once again at the thought of having to witness her past - but she felt she’d come too far to give up now. 

‘I’ll do it,’ she said, proudly, taking a step towards the machine. 

Jungeun could only smile as she and her new apprentice were taken eighteen years into the past.

-

The smell of freshly cut grass and the sound of a child’s laughter greeted Jungeun and Hyejoo who had since appeared in a garden, which Hyejoo immediately recognised as the garden of her childhood home. In front of them sat a small child, no older than four years, black hair cascading down into the grass. On her lap sat a Siberian Husky puppy, even smaller than the child, with fur the same black as her owner’s hair. 

Hyejoo whimpered as she watched on, longing to be able to hold the animal in her arms once again. Jungeun’s arm crossed Hyejoo’s waist to prevent her from interrupting the events of the past. 

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, ‘but I can’t risk you going out there.’ 

The pair continued to watch as the dog leaped out of the child’s arms and ran towards the house, seemingly disturbed by something. 

‘Shadow?’ the young girl said softly, craning her neck to see where the animal was going. At the same time, the roar of an engine sounded as a car materialised over the hill in front of Hyejoo’s house, heading in the direction of the toddler. Jungeun gasped and Hyejoo tried to scream but she was met with silence. 

A white light flickered in front of the vehicle as it reached the house’s fencing causing it to narrowly avoid the now panic-stricken child and the time machine, causing Hyejoo to flinch, and end up in the driveway - ultimately crashing into the garage door. Jungeun put a hand on her partner’s shoulder to calm her. 

‘Did you see that light?’ Jungeun asked, turning to Hyejoo, who could only nod. ‘That was only the first instance. She might have multiple forms. Maybe if we go to another time we’ll see her physical form. School?’

As much as Hyejoo dreaded the thought of having to go back to school she still agreed, determined to connect with her guardian.

Once again, Hyejoo’s atoms felt as though they were being stretched and squashed simultaneously as she was taken from the beauty of her garden to the dimly-lit corridor of her high school where the smell of sweat was overpowering. Jungeun groaned, covering her nose with her sleeve. 

‘Teenagers,’ she mumbled, rolling her eyes.

In front of the pair was a scene Hyejoo would rather forget. Surrounded by three boys, taller than herself, was the girl from the garden. Her hair was shorter now in comparison to her taller stature. Using their height to their advantage the boys threw a black backpack between each other while the girl jumped feebly, failing to collect the bag, while maniacal laughter echoed through the halls.

Just as the schoolgirl looked defeated and was, quite obviously, on the verge of tears, Hyejoo was filled with seething rage and probably would’ve snapped the barrier that was Jungeun’s arm had it not been for the sight that emerged from around the corner.

‘It’s her!’ Hyejoo gasped, as the figure she had become so connected to so quickly appeared in full, physical form. Her hair was blonde - light, fitting for someone who radiated such innocence - and in a ponytail. Her robes were white, flowing, and perfectly uncorrupted by stains - reflective of her personality, and her smile was contagious. Jungeun was in a stage between awe at actually seeing the angel and grinning at Hyejoo’s wide, subconscious smile.

Beside her was a figure whose stature and clothing were the complete opposite. The school’s most feared gym teacher - an unsmiling brute who was built like a machine with an aura strong enough to instill fear in any student. Upon seeing him, the black-haired girl’s tormentors sprinted off down the corridor leaving her free to collect her backpack and go on her way.

‘She saved you right as it got too much,’ Jungeun observed.

Jungeun and Hyejoo were mesmerised as the divine figure seemed to make eye contact with the volunteer. She didn’t speak as she approached Hyejoo but, instead, took a hold of both of her hands, pressing them together, and Hyejoo could only stare as echoes of the name ‘Park Chae Won’ rang through her ears and the happy memories that Hyejoo had, though few and far between, played in her mind, causing her to smile once more as she and her guardian angel wrapped themselves in the warm arms of one another.

‘I hate to interrupt,’ Jungeun said, placing a hand on Hyejoo’s shoulder, ‘but we can only stay for so long. Timelines and whatnot.’ Hyejoo slowly removed herself from the arms of the angel but her longing stare into the guardian’s eyes remained unbroken. She smiled and Chaewon offered one in return.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, unsure of whether the ethereal figure could actually hear it - but it didn’t really matter to her. 

The machine buzzed and shook as Hyejoo and Jungeun were returned to the laboratory they had become so familiar with. As they both exited the archway of the device Jungeun turned to Hyejoo and thanked her profusely - for her confidence and willingness when it came to helping the doctor on such short notice and for her determination in continuing with the scientist’s discovery. 

‘You’ll get your reward soon enough,’ said Jungeun, tapping her nose, leaving Hyejoo wondering what exactly was in store for her.

-

As Hyejoo was making the most of the rest of her trip to the city, window-shopping, taking in the sights and sounds, reminiscing on her journey with her idol, her phone vibrated twice again. With more eagerness than last time Hyejoo dug her hand into the pocket of her coat and retrieved the device. A hologram of a mature looking brunette with a calm demeanor presented herself in front of the girl’s eyes. She introduced herself as Jo Haseul, the mayor of the capital. Hyejoo bowed her head instinctively at Haseul’s status but the woman giggled and waved her hand to signal that such respect was not necessary. 

‘Son Hyejoo, you’ve become quite the talk of the town lately. An apprentice for Kim Jungeun.. an honour, for anyone.’ Hyejoo nodded as she reflected on the memories she’d made in such a short amount of time. 

The mayor continued, ‘I’d like to offer you an invitation to the city’s end-of-month awards ceremony. This Saturday, 3pm, in front of the town hall.’ The invitation was accepted immediately yet gracefully by Hyejoo. ‘Don’t be late!’ Haseul chuckled as she disappeared to return to her mayoral duties. 

-

The clock chimed three times as Hyejoo approached the square in front of the town hall. Upon a wide wooden stage stood the physical form of Mayor Jo Haseul. Her voice was propelled far and wide by the microphone she was equipped with and her smile created a positive atmosphere amongst the citizens who watched on. 

As Hyejoo took a seat near the back she noticed a familiar face. Looking considerably happier from their first encounter was the very man who had barged into her with his shopping bags after she had left the train station. She felt the man’s eyes burning into the side of her face so she turned to look at him. Stuttering, he apologised for the earlier incident. Luckily for him Hyejoo was, for once, in a genuinely good mood and absolved him of his sin. 

The black haired girl followed typical awards ceremony etiquette as Haseul read off the names of recipients - standing, sitting and clapping when appropriate - until the mayor decided to welcome a special guest to the stage. 

‘Kim Jungeun?’ she said, extending an arm out to the front row of the crowd. Hyejoo was a little disheartened that she hadn’t noticed the scientist earlier but any negative feelings soon disappeared as Jungeun stood gloriously in the centre of the stage. She cleared her throat and leant into the microphone, ready to deliver her speech.

‘As some of you may or may not have heard, a few days ago I welcomed a volunteer into my workspace. Brave enough to trust me - one of the only few people who are foolish enough to -’

Her quip provoked laughter from sections of the audience with Hyejoo unable to contain a giggle, ‘she went above and beyond to help me discover that two of my contraptions weren’t actually life-threatening and got rewarded with an unimaginable personal discovery. It’s with a warm heart and open arms that I ask Son Hyejoo to collect her award for her contributions to science and the furtherance of technology.’

Hyejoo rose, her beaming smile unable to be contained and the feeling of excitement that filled her entire body unable to be quelled - not that Hyejoo wanted it to disappear - and made her way to the aisle where the chairs were separated and forwards, towards the stage. Jungeun watched on as her apprentice made her way onto the stage and held her arms outstretched, the golden medal gleaming and glistening in the afternoon sunlight. 

Thanking the crowd, Jungeun, and Haseul for their hospitality and applause, Hyejoo stood proudly next to the engineer and the mayor as a photographer aimed a camera at them. As the flash was emitted Hyejoo noticed a white orb seemingly float from the lens towards the trio and felt a comforting presence next to her.

The girl’s smile widened further as the words, ‘this was your destiny’ echoed through her ears and she knew that, for the first time, she had friends - genuine friends - and that she’d proven her tormentors, her bullies, her doubters, wrong. No university placement could ever have compared to this.

Son Hyejoo was alive. But not through luck - but because she needed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! this is the first longer/one-shot type fic i've written and i wrote it a while back but decided to revise it so i apologise for any mistakes or a decrease in quality. although it's not your typical 'relationship' type fic, i still hope it was an enjoyable read! please feel free to leave comments or feedback. (big thank you to my beta readers <3)
> 
>  
> 
> twitter: https://twitter.com/heejiwons
> 
> curiouscat: https://curiouscat.me/dannio/


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